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Rufus Saxton
|died= |image= |caption=Medal of Honor recipient |nickname= |placeofbirth= Greenfield, Massachusetts |placeofdeath= Washington, D.C. |placeofburial= Arlington National Cemetery |placeofburial_label= Place of burial |allegiance= United States of America Union |branch=U.S. Army |serviceyears= 1849–1888 |rank= Brigadier General |unit= |commands= |battles= American Civil War |awards= Medal of Honor |relations= |laterwork= }} Rufus Saxton (October 19, 1824 – February 23, 1908) was a Union Army brigadier general during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Harpers Ferry. Early life Saxton was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His father, Jonathan Ashley Saxton, was a transcendentalist whose feminist and abolitionist writings were heard on the lyceum circuit. He descended from a family of ministers (Ashley, Williams, Edwards). His father attempted to secure a place for Rufus Saxton at Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a transcendentalist community started by George Ripley and attended by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rufus Saxton's brother Samuel Willard "Will" Saxton attended Brook Farm in his stead, learning the printing trade for the Farm's publication The Harbinger. Later, Will would join Rufus Saxton in South Carolina as his aide-de-camp and printer during the Port Royal Experiment. Rufus Saxton married a Philadelphian missionary, Mathilda Thompson, who had come South to teach the newly freed blacks with her newspaper journalist brother. Rufus Saxton was educated at Deerfield Academy and at the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1849. His antebellum career included posts fighting Seminoles in Florida, teaching artillery tactics at West Point, surveying the uncharted Rocky Mountains on George B. McClellan's staff in advance of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1853), and map work for the Coastal Survey. Civil War As the Civil War broke out, Saxton served as a quartermaster and ultimately a brigadier general for the Union forces. During the war, he commanded the Union defenses at Harpers Ferry and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his "gallant service" there in May and June 1862. According to a New York Times article of April 22, 1893, about Saxton's award, "So far to only two other general officers have been awarded the medals, Gens. Schofield and Miles." Saxton was later appointed military governor of the Department of the South. As such, he directed the recruitment of the first regiments of black soldiers who fought in the Union army. Postbellum career Saxton later served as assistant commissioner for the Freedmen's Bureau, where he pursued the policy of settling freed slaves in land confiscated from white landowners in the Sea Islands, until he was removed from his position by President Andrew Johnson. After the Civil War, Saxton remained in the Army, serving in the Quartermaster Corps. He retired in 1888 and lived in Washington D.C. until his death. He is honored with a private memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved on 2007-10-25 African-American relations Saxton was an abolitionist and proponent for greater rights for blacks. According to an account by his close personal friend, author Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Saxton "had been almost the only cadet in his time at West Point who was strong in anti-slavery feeling, and who thus began with antagonisms which lasted into actual service."T.W. Higginson, Carlyle's Laugh and Other Surprises, Riverside Press (1908). In 1866, Saxton testified before Congress's Joint Committee on Reconstruction, saying "I think if the Negro is put in possession of all his rights as a citizen and as a man, he will be peaceful, orderly, and self-sustaining as any other man or class of men, and that he will rapidly advance." Saxton appointed his friend, author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first official black regiment. Rufus Saxton figures prominently in Higginson's book Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870). On the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Higginson and Saxton were both presented with engraved silver ceremonial swords by the freedman. Namesake Battery Barlow-Saxton at Fort MacArthur is named in his honor. Medal of Honor citation Rank and Organization: :Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Harpers Ferry, W. Va., 26 to May 30, 1862. Entered service at: Deerfield, Mass. Birth: Greenfield, Mass. Date of issue: April 25, 1893. Citation: :Distinguished gallantry and good conduct in the defense. See also *List of Medal of Honor recipients *List of American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients: Q–S *List of American Civil War generals *List of Massachusetts generals in the American Civil War Notes Category:1824 births Category:1908 deaths Category:Army Medal of Honor recipients Category:American explorers Category:Union Army generals Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery Category:People from Massachusetts Category:United States Army generals Category:United States Military Academy alumni Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Category:United States military governors Category:Deerfield Academy alumni Category:Heads of Deerfield Academy